Recently, the Oakdale High School book club read the book Bloodsworth by Tim Junkin. The book talks about Kirk Bloodsworth, the first American sentenced to death to be exonerated after his conviction by DNA testing. There were different opinions about the book and whether or not the students found it to be interesting and insightful.

“It was a difficult book to read, but it was a book that woke me up to the fact that there are so many people that are incarcerated wrongfully. In that regard I liked it, because it made me aware of an issue I was totally unaware of..and especially since it happened in the state of Maryland which is a little scary..because I live here,” explained Renate Owen, the media specialist at Oakdale.

Ms. Owen is the creator of book club and the person who chose Bloodsworth for the club to read. She likes the book and talks about how it gives the reader an eye opening experience. The book allows readers to get a glimpse of how the justice system in our state operates.

Owen mentioned, “You know that up front he’s going to be set free, I read the book because I want to know how he went about doing that..what were the steps..and there were a lot..it was crazy. He had to go from one lawyer to another and another until finally somebody was both capable and the timing was right for him to get the evidence found that exonerated him. The ending was very sad, because many people..they still thought he was guilty even though there was DNA evidence..it’s scientific evidence, you can’t deny that.”

Ms. Owen talked about how she felt about the ending of the book. She was interested in figuring out how a person could go from death row, to released from prison completely.

Sophomore Hannah Lindemann commented, “I thought it was interesting and it made me think a lot about what happens in our criminal justice system. I would have just made it less repetitive in the first half.”

Lindemann is a member of the OHS book club. She also mentioned that the book was repetitive during the first half and repeated a lot of information that had already been stated.

Overall, people in book club recommend Bloodsworth to people who are interested in learning more about the criminal justice system. This book by Tim Jenkins is available to check out in the OHS library.

Photo source: https://www.amazon.com/Bloodsworth-Story-Inmate-Exonerated-Evidence/dp/1565125142